The first day of the Arizona Black Film Showcase proved to be a great start for the list of film festivals we’ll be attending in the next few weeks. This is my first time in Arizona, and the first time I’ve had a music video in a film festival, so this first day has been full of firsts… I’ve been really curious to see how everything plays out.

After registering, and near scare that our film was not listed on the schedule, I went to a discussion with Producer/Director Lee Daniels . Lee Daniels is most notable for directing Monster’s Ball, but got his start working with Prince back in the 80’s. It was great to hear his perspective on independent filmmaking, considering that he’s had a lot of exposure to the more “mainstream” Hollywood scene. He explained that he’d rather do his films “guerilla style”, spend his own money, and call his own shots, instead of working on a big budget project where his talents and vision would be compromised. It was funny to hear that he auditioned for Director of Dream Girls, but was instantly turned down when he insisted that Effie should be featured with a “boogie” in her nose.

The next discussion I attended was with Actress Lynn Whitfield, who’s most memorable to me for her role as Martin Lawrence’s crazy wife in A Thin Line Between Love & Hate. She was also the “evil” mother from Madea’s Family Reunion… It was good to see that Lynn was not actually crazy and evil when she interviewed. She was a lot of fun and shared a number of stories about her career, how she got started, and how she managed to climb out of Hollywood’s crab barrel. She made me want to go and rent the Josephine Baker Story again…

The evening consisted of film screenings. I saw a good variety of features, shorts, and documentaries from all over the country. All of the films were on two screens in the AMC Theater, so it was a good opportunity for me to meet other filmmakers. I even had a brief interview with Phoenix based tv show, BigTV1.com about our video. I was hoping to see a documentary on the Good Life Cafe (birthplace of Project Blowed) titled, This Is The Life, but found out it had been canceled. I was about to head home, when someone suggested that I check out the other documentary titled, Second Chance Season. Initially, I was as interested in what seemed to be another Hoop Dreams, but this doc really blew me away! It followed a high school basketball star, Nick Young, whose family was still suffering from the murder of his older brother in 1991. You should check it out for yourself… and that’s all I have to say about that.

Our film screens today, Saturday, at 1:55pm at the AMC Theater in downtown Phoenix.

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